Stern Fans Hit Satellite Sites

As Howard Stern left broadcast radio for satellite last week, Web users flocked to satellite radio Web sites, according to data released Wednesday by research firm Hitwise. The market share of visits to SiriusRadio.com doubled for the week ending Dec. 17 compared to last year, while the market share of visits to XMRadio.com increased by 62 percent. Hitwise also predicted that Stern will bring a younger, more citified audience to satellite, based on the demographics of his Web site visitors. More than half of the visitors to HowardStern.com were younger than 34 years old, while around 20 percent were older than 45. By contrast, 35 percent of XM Radio visitors were older than 45, as were about 25 percent of Sirius Radio visitors. Only about 14 percent of visitors to Sirius--and 10 percent of visitors to XM Radio--came from urban areas, while 23.4 percent of visitors to HowardStern.com came from such areas.